by Rocky Contos

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MILE-BY-MILE GUIDE TO ESCALANTE RIVER

0.0 Put-in at highway 12 bridge, just upstream RL near parking area.
1.6 Phipps Wash enters from right. Great short hike. Up on the right after ~0.5 mile is Maverick Bridge. Up on the left after ~1 mile you can climb up to 40 ft high Phipps Arch.
2.5 RL Deer Canyon. Bowington Arch is up about 1.2 miles then to the left. You have to pass 3 plunge pools to get up there.
5.8 RL Boulder/Deer Creek. There is a significant flow of clear water entering. The gauges of both Boulder Cr and Deer Cr need to summed to get the flow entering the river here. We had 15-20 cfs on Deer Creek gauge, and 100-140 cfs on the Boulder Cr gauge. Great hike. Can follow up to 8 miles up Death Hollow to the road, although there is likely much wading/swimming required.
6.1 Camp #1. RL; nice sandy area among trees; no bugs.
7.0 Slot. Somewhere in this region (between miles 7-9) an awesome 1-2 ft wide slot on RL just off the river can be missed unless your paying attention (A+).

9.6 RR side canyon (A). A short hike up this side canyon brings you to some interesting moves to get through some pools and then up a slot. If you’re good, you won’t have to get more than calf-wet. If not, you might get pretty wet. Past this slot-area, you can hike up farther to a “pool with a beach”, some potholes, and a trisection area where a fault appears to have made two straight side canyons on either side.
12.7 RR Another interesting looking side canyon.
14.3 RL The Gulch. This adds perhaps another 20-50 cfs. Great hike up the Gulch, according to Lambrechtse.
14.6 Springwater. On RR just above river level are some springs covering the wall. Look closely and you’ll find one one seep with a good little stream in it that you can put your water bottle up next to and fill up.
15.6 RR Huge fern-lined chamber is a short walk up. I’m not certain, but I believe it is at the outer side of the near circular meander of the river.
16.8 RL Rincon. An abandoned meander in the river made the Rincon found here. Would be interesting to get out and walk around it.
17.3 RL Horse Canyon. Large drainage and good hiking up it. Going up far enough here and in Little Death Hollow you can find springs, narrows, petroglyphs, and natural arches.
17.7 RL Look for a natural arch up high on the left bank. This is marked on the topo.
18.5 RR Rincon. Another abandoned meander.
20.0 RL Side canyon.
21.2 Camp #2. RR. There weren’t many camps in this region, and most of the places we stopped to scout out were infested with mosquitoes. The spot we settled on was a sandy shelf about 15 ft above the river just past a slight overhang where the river is about to turn sharply left, and about a mile below the side canyon after Horse Canyon.
23.6 RL Side Canyon. We hiked up this and after about a mile were walled out.
26.7 RL Silver Falls Creek. Large drainage, with good hike.
27.1 RR Harris Wash. Large drainage, with good hike.
29.2 RL Two side canyons enter almost at the same place.
32.1 RL Choprock Canyon (A+). One of the best hikes we did. 0.9 miles up you’ll come to the North and South Choprock split. Going to the right (South Choprock) you get walled out in about 0.3 miles. A bolt is located up in the slot canyon at this point for rappels. Two guys died canyoneering down this side canyon a little over a month before our trip. They apparently were underdressed, with only shorty wetsuits, and died of hypothermia being stuck in one of the deep slot pools. Returning to the fork, if you take North Choprock Canyon, you can easily walk through gorgeous narrows that last about 2 miles. 2.9 miles up North Choprock is another split. We only went about 0.3 mile farther up the right side. (our total hike up here was 4.2, plus another 0.5 up/back South Choprock, so about 5 miles total). If you continue 5.2 miles farther up the right (taking the right fork at two more splits), you’ll get to the dirt road (i.e. 9.0 miles from the river). For a good description of the canyon see: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/esca/chop.php ; some more pictures of South Choprock: http://climb-utah.com/Escalante/chop.htm ; For a report on the deaths see: http://climb-utah.com/Escalante/chop1.htm ; also http://www.utahcanyons.com/news/mornrepeort.html and http://www.canyoneering.com/general/news.html#32;

32.4 Camp #3. On RL just downstream of Choprock Canyon was a great sandy camp area free of mosquitoes.
33.3 RR Fence Canyon. Apparently there is a great slot hike up this canyon, possibly with some water to wade through. Hiking down this canyon from the Egypt trailhead is a normal entrance to access Choprock, Neon, and Ringtail.
34.3 RL Neon Canyon (A+). A 0.7 mile hike up here leads to Golden Cathedral, an amazing chamber where the side-canyon water drops down a hole in the sandstone. A large pool lies at it’s base. There is a second hole in the sandstone next to it, a natural bridge of sorts. This is another popular canyoneering descent canyon, with obviously awesome narrows above the Cathedral. A pleasant easy hike, look out for the sand flies that love to latch onto moving legs. Their bite is painful and causes a mosquito-type itch afterward. Near the mouth of the canyon there are several panels of pictographs. For a description of the canyon see: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/esca/neon.htm ;Another description of this and Ringtail: http://www.losalamos.org/climb/139.html
35.6 RL Ringtail Canyon (A++). This is a must-do side canyon. After a short walk, the canyon goes into an amazing slot cave. You can proceed up perhaps 1/2 mile, squirming sideways through 1ft-wide passages, wading through pools that get about thigh-deep, stemming across potholes, and climbing awkwardly. The last parts might require a hand to escape out of. We stopped our progress where there was an eerie nest of ~100 large spiders. For a description of the canyon see the website listed above at Neon.
38.8 RL Baker Canyon (B, A+ if you get into the slot). We hiked up about 0.5 mile to the point where a rappel is necessary to descend. This spot is probably known as Redrock Cathedral. There is pretty greenery on this short walk, as well as poison ivy to avoid. We heard from Bill (?) that you can ascend into the lower slot above the last rappel of Baker by climbing up around the RR side of the side-canyon, starting down near the river or just upstream of the mouth. The side canyon only goes up about 4 miles total and like Ringtail, is a much smaller drainage compared to Choprock and Neon.
39.4 RR 25-Mile Wash. Large drainage and supposedly one of the nicer big hikes around. Many side canyons to explore, some with narrows. Great camp across from the mouth.
45.3 RL Moody Canyon (B). Camp #4. A nice big camp located near the mouth requires a little drag of boats up to. No bugs. In the morning we hiked up about 2 miles. This is a very large drainage. It was pleasant fairly easy walking, with nice scenery of big walls on the sides, but not intimate like those in the Baker-Choprock benches. There is a very old Rincon 0.4 miles upcanyon on the left, pretty high above the current Moody bottom. Around here you’ll encouter some water in the washbottom (good to purify water). 2.7 miles up is the junction with Middle Moody on the right. There is a spring 0.4 miles up this on the right. 8 miles up Middle Moody on the left you can reach the Purple Hills. If you go up the main Moody Canyon 1-2 miles, you should be able to climb out on the left and drop down into the Baker drainage a mile over. From there it’s only 3.5 miles down to the river (if you can make it! – bring rappel gear; and remember to leave someway to get back to Moody along the river).
46.6 RL East Moody Canyon. Good hike. About a third or quarter the size of Moody, and probably narrower. Interesting-looking side canyon to the right 1.4 miles up, possibly with some narrows. The main Escalante riverbed gets much narrower in the region.
47.0 RL Rincon. This is a huge Rincon, and would make a cool 1.0 mile loop hike.
52.3 RR Scorpion Gulch (A-). We hiked up here 1.4 miles to a point where there’s a significant side branch to the right. Watch out for the poison ivy in the lower areas near the mouth. This gulch has flowing water in the lower parts from springs.
53.5 Scorpion Rapid (III-IV). This 4 ft falls in the in the right channel was a fun drop at ~400 cfs. We probed the depth and couldn’t feel bottom, so we decided to float over. I went first and was stopped by the shallow rock with 1/3 my kayak over the lip, being too far right. I eddied around and went over farther left where more of was flowing, and had no problem. However, Preston and I think Mike went deep and/or were stopped at the bottom. It seemed possible to float over the rapid on the left side as well, but it involved more potential for pitoning.
54.2 RL Georgie’s Camp and Side Canyon (B+). Camp #5. Very nice large camp a short hike up. This is a sizeable side canyon, with a good stream of clear water falling down. It probably also leads to the exuberant brush growing, which makes the hiking rather scratchy. There is an interesting alternative channel to the river (or possibly an abandoned meander of the river) only 0.3 miles up. From here you can cut right and bypass an oak forest (Mike said it really reminded him of the east coast) on the right on some game trails. Doing this loop is about 0.7 miles total. Tomster continued up the main canyon, bushwacking and boulder hopping, up to the fork, seeing basically similar features. We bathed using the clean water down by the mouth. Although Georgie White Clark and partner were the first to float down the Escalante in 1948, this camp actually refers to a rancher in the region.
54.7 RR Rincon (pretty old one judging by how high up it goes).
58.0 RL Side Canyon.
60.3 RL Shofer Canyon (?). I scrambled up to check it out. It appeared to be a boulder jumble of 1/3 mile to hike up it. Perhaps after this it would flatten a lot and you could enjoy the narrows that are apparent on the topo map, but it didn’t appear worth the effort.
61.2 RL Saddle (A). From this red saddle, you can see the next rapid downstream. We all hiked up, but Tomster boat ended up going into the river on it’s own. I ran down and intercepted it as it was going around the bend, and towed it down to the other side of the saddle.
61.8 Portage/Rapid (III-IV). This boulder jumble is easily recognized and portaged on RL. There are good eddies to catch before it begins. The first part of the rapid is a narrow slot and 2ft drop a couple feet wide that our kayaks could have easily made it through. There is some water pushing into a slight undercut just below it on the right. We all stopped above this one. A portage trail goes to the main drop about 10m downstream. At ~400 cfs, there was a route through this part of the rapid, but it was such a tight turn that the kayaks wouldn’t be able to make it in a forward direction. I removed a log that was blocking the route. The way to do it was to go backward through the first part, backing into a small eddy, and then coming out to the left over the main sliding channel. This worked for everyone, though most of the guys were pushed hard into the boulder on the right in the main channel. I gave a good push away from it when entering and didn’t have this problem.
62.5 RL Side Canyon.
62.8 Saddle.
64.4 RR Fools Canyon (A-). Nice small camp just downstream of mouth. We stopped for lunch and a hike here, and ran into two other groups. We hiked up 1-2 miles through some interesting bedrock sandstone areas, passing a deep pool before a “skatepark” type area. To avoid all the grass and vegetation in the creekbed, look for routes on up on the sandstone both left and right. One of the two parties we ran into was two older guys from Las Vegas/St George, and another SLC group of 5 (Bill + wife, Bill the canyoneer, and a couple other guys). All were in inflatable kayaks. Bill the canyoneer had floated the river 7 other times, and descended many times most of the slot canyons in the area, including S. Choprock, Neon, and Baker. He told of how one time at the end of Neon a flash flood hit them and he descended head-first through the hole into Golden Cathedral. The others waited a few hours above the hole for the water level to drop. He says one of the nicest hikes to do from the river is to get up on the sandstone benches at the rim on RL in the region of Scorpion Gulch.
66.2 RL Icabod Canyon. This one, like the previous two side canyons, looks like a boulder jumble to climb up. However, supposedly you can get up on the beautiful sandstone mesa bench by going up it. In this area look for a “Sitting Buddha” up high on RL.
68.5 RR Saddle (A). Very cool hike up to this saddle. One can see some camp areas down on the other side.
71.1 RL Stevens Canyon (A). Just before getting here you’ll see the unmistakable Stevens Arch on RL. There are better picture-views of the arch downstream of the side-canyon, so don’t worry about getting the best photo at this spot (although these are pretty nice too). Paddle up several hundred meters into the inlet. This side canyon is one of the most impressive of the larger canyons we saw. Alex and I hiked up over a mile, and found giant overhanging undercuts that the side stream had carved. There is a stream flowing here – I purified water. There is also one of the nicest camps along the whole river up the inlet. The camp was occupied by Todd and Dave, who were Colorado guys in IKs doing a trip to the lake in 9 days (we ran into them several times on our journey).
71.2 RR Camp #6. If the Stevens Canyon camp is occupied, you can go a little bit downstream and on RL find a huge beach camp under an enormous overhang. This was probably our most scenic and nice camp.

72.4 RR Coyote Gulch (A). This is one of the most popular hikes and take-out point for many floating down the river. We spent several hours hiking up here, passing Cliff Arch (2.3 miles up) and getting to Coyote Natural Bridge (4.4 miles up). We didn’t get to Jacob Hamblin Arch (5.9 miles up). Even farther is Hurricane Wash junction (7.7 miles up), which is the route down for most of the backpackers we saw. Dry Fork Coyote Gulch is a right fork at 12.3 miles. Up this you can reach Brimstone Gulch (19.9 miles), Spooky Gulch (20.8 miles), Peekaboo Gulch (~22 miles) and Hole-In-The-Rock Road (23.7 miles). You can also reach the road up the main Coyote Gulch (3.1 miles up to Red Well from the Dry Fork junction), or Hurricane Wash (5.5 miles up). The normal hike out is through Crack-in-the-Wall, a route up to the rim about 0.2 miles up the wash (going up the RR side) from the river. It’s a 2.1 mile hike with 800 ft elevation gain. Some pictures and report: http://www.escalanteoutfitters.com/grooters.html
76.0 Silty Rapid (III-IV). Somewhere in this region, after an undercut on the left that is mentioned in the rangers guide (easily avoided by us), look for this hazard. The current is fast here and silt banks are falling in constantly. This rapid was formed by a boulder and logs. Get out on the left to scout. It is a squirrly slot that we all ran except Preston, who elected to portage (not too difficult). It would be very hard to get through in an IK.

77.0 RL Side canyon.
78.9 RL Cow/Fence Canyons. You can access these perhaps more easily by hiking up over a saddle about 0.5 mile upstream of the mouth.
80.0 We lost current and ran into the reservoir around here. Elevation of reservoir was 3590 ft.
81.0 RL Side Canyon.
82.1 RL Explorer Canyon (A). We paddled up the narrow inlet about 0.2 mile to where the streambed starts. It was cold and raining on our hike, but we still made our way up to the pictographs (left side of canyon) and Zane Grey Arch (also left side of canyon). Look for trails up above the brush-choked creekbed on the left side. The canyon walls-out about 1.7 mile up (2.0 miles up from the mouth), and about 0.4 mile past Zane Grey Arch. The arch is not obvious from the paths you take hiking up. Behind the arch is an old Indian living area with some type of granary. Hiking up farther past Zane Grey Arch you can find more pictographs on the left side. Note that if you are just paddling downstream on the reservoir, you can paddle to the right of the island over a former saddle, to cut off about 1.5 miles.
82.1 Island. Camp#7. We camped on the island just across from Explorer Canyon inlet. There was plenty of firewood around, as well as pretty level terrain, made better by shoveling away the tumbleweeds with a paddle.
85.0 RR Willow Creek Arm. We paddled 1.0 miles up the scenic Willow Creek arm of Lake Powell to the Bishop Canyon Gulch coming in from the right. RR Bishop Canyon (A). It was then another 1.2 mile paddle up to where the creek entered the reservoir at this level. We hiked up 2-3 miles to the end and a feature that Michael Kelsey described as the “largest” overhanging chamber of its kind. I was expecting something akin to Cathedral in the Desert or Golden Cathedral. Needless to say, we were underwhelmed by this particular aspect, but overall this hike had many fun aspects to it, including lots of narrow bedrock sections and some fun stem moves over pools of water. There were plenty of crawdads in the stream flowing here too. We returned to the Willow Creek mouth and waited >1 hr for our boat ride (Lee Iverson; 801-599-3131) to show up, taking nice swims in the warm lake water. Lee is a retired fireman from SLC that did a few tow-outs for other groups this year. Although prices might be different based on fuel used/etc, we paid him $300 for the ride out and $125 for each of three vehicles to be shuttled from the put-in to Bullfrog marina ($675 total, or $135 each). He is not always available to do this, but at the time was starting a week-long vacation on a houseboat.
88.0 RR Fifty-Mile Creek Arm. Great hikes up here, but also long paddle up. Some spectacular narrows are exposed at the lower lake levels found in 2004 and 2005. There are numerous side-arms that are interesting to explore as well.
91.7 RR Clear Creek Arm. A 1.3 mile paddle up this arm and you will reach Cathedral in the Desert, one of the finest attractions of Glen Canyon. With the reservoir lower than 3600 ft, most of the Cathedral is exposed. When the level dropped to 3555 ft in April 2005, the entire floor was revealed as well and you had to hike into the main chamber. However, apparently silt deposited from flash floods in the creek raised the normal level of the floor about 20 ft. At intermediate reservoir levels you can boat into the chamber and climb up the small falls. Leonard was very cool and took us for a side-tour on our boat ride out. Although motorboating in was not as mystical an experience, it was still a pleasure to behold. Apparently some outfitters boated in orchestras to play concerts there in last summer when the chamber was exposed. It probably has amazing acoustics. Check out: http://www.cathedralinthedesert.org/
94.2 Mouth of Escalante. Here the river reaches the Colorado. Make a right to get to Hole-in-the-Rock.
98.0 RR Hole-in-the-Rock. Take-out. You must hike your boat up 1/3 mile and a couple hundred feet to get to the parking area.



Also note the following that Ed Clark of NOAA wrote (on 24May2005):

The escalante flow is simply the sumation of boulder creek and the escalante gage. Also, historically we see the peak flows on the esclante when the snow at widstow #3
http://www.cbrfc.noaa.gov/snow/station/sweplot/sweplot.cgi?WSTU1 is melted out about halfway. I think we'll see peak flows down there this weekend. The same goes for Muddy Creek and Ferron Creek (both of the upper sections offer some nice creeking.)

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